Poland denies entry to Russian bikers

The Polish authorities formally notified the Russian diplomatic mission in Warsaw about barring entry for participants of the Moscow-Berlin motor rally organized by the Night Wolves bikers' club.

The Polish authorities formally notified the Russian diplomatic mission in Warsaw about barring entry for participants of the Moscow-Berlin motor rally organized by the Night Wolves bikers' club.

"The Embassy has received a note on this matter," Russian Embassy spokeswoman Valeria Perzhinskaya told Interfax.

In it, "the Polish side formally notified about having denied entry to Russian motorcyclists, citing the ostensible delay in the provision of information about the visit and its organization," she said.

The bikers' club was planning to perform the Moscow-Berlin motor rally, timed to coincide with the Victory Day, on April 25-May 9. The planned itinerary was to cross Belarus, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. According to Alexander Zaldastanov, the club's president, 15 bikers were to take part in the rally.

In Poland, these plans were met with protests. Poland's Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz called the planned rally a "provocation."

The latest polls showed that more than half of Poles do not want to see Night Wolves in their country, a Polish radio station said.

There were also opponents of the Night Wolves' motor rally in Belarus. Representatives from the youth wing of the Belarusian opposition "For Freedom" movement launched a campaign on social media, aimed against the motor rally.

For their part, German security agencies said that the bikers will not be allowed to stage a motor rally to Berlin's Treptower Park, where a Soviet soldiers' memorial is located, on May 9. Berlin police had received no application for the event to be organized in the German capital. But even if one is filed in the coming days, the organizers will receive a negative reply.